To Act Befittingly
by AoUsagi
Summary: The year is 2020. Sebastian Michaelis muses about his young charge and how much of a brat she is. Then again, is she anything compared to the little lost Earl he can't forget? Live Action Movie verse.


**...**

 **To Act Befittingly**

What a boring brat, Sebastian often thought. Even the very first Earl of this seemingly growing tradition wasn't this bratty. If anything, he had been worse. But at least he had been an interesting enough charge.

At least he hadn't given up on life so damn quick.

It hadn't taken long for Sebastian Michaelis to realize what a massive pickle he'd gotten himself into. Truly, the Phantomhive legacy was as strongly stagnant as ever, earl after early absconding with the title down the line. The move across the nations had been something a change, he had to admit. Getting used to the altered state lines and mainland territories was nothing he couldn't handle – he had seen countries rise and fall, lands claimed and lost. Battles waged and won and lost. World War II had certainly been fun, if only in the immediate, cheap-thrill kind of way.

But the twenty-first century was something else indeed. Two thousand and ten had seen the summoning of his good self once more, and once again he had found himself liberating a sullied, tainted little soul from darkness. From sorrow. How easy it was to change their attitudes – once they had finished crying, it was easy to sway them to anger.

Anger drove them, he knew with that tell tale smirk. Anger was what made them so much fun.

Shiori Genpou, he found, could use to be _more_ angry. She was softer, sadder, in a way. But no less a brat.

Tea was brewed and poured, served with a dainty flourish. But he knew she didn't care for his lavish mannerisms – his original master, at the very least, had the brass to wave him off. This droll little charge hardly ever even acknowledged him. If anything, she only ever got irritated by him.

She was so like that young soul so many years ago. So many things were oh so similar.

Sebastian often found himself comparing the ways Shiori Genpou and the late Earl Phantomhive were alike. Neither were all too impressed by him after the initial demonstration of his power. Both were easily trusting in his prowess. They both understood his dangers. Both sought revenge, and sought his abilities to do so.

Then there were the ways they were not alike at all. Shiori only took a single teaspoon of sugar in her tea, unlike the two heaped teaspoons he had become well acquainted with tipping into the finiest of china just over a hundred years ago. Shiori was more compassionate. She had had more fear for herself, and yet, more selflessness, too. She had been so willing to throw away her life so that others might live.

So unbecoming of a powerful noble, Sebastian had shaken his head to himself as he'd been folding laundry one day. That kind of behaviour wouldn't have sat at all with his previous master. If people died, then so be it. So long as his masters' instructions from on high had been satisfied, then it didn't matter how much collateral damage occurred.

However, it was the ways in which Sebastian found himself tucking his new young charge in at night, the ways he would wake her in the mornings. She would peer up at him and call him a rotten butler. Five more minutes, she would grumble as she rolled over. Rotten butler.

 _Rotten._

Was that what he'd become? He had always thought of himself a dutiful, worthy servant to any master. Their wishes had been his commands, their deepest desires had been everything he had lived for. Was it the masochism of being controlled, whilst also being the controller? Holding such a weighty price above their heads, but offering them everything they could want of him right to the palms of their hands?

Maybe a hundred years or so had dulled his ways.

Maybe.

Maybe he was going rotten.

Or maybe, just maybe, he mused as he dressed his dainty little charge in her ironed shirts and buttoned waistcoats, maybe he was just missing the way things used to be. Perhaps that was what had drawn him back to the Phantomhive name. Did he miss the late eighteen hundreds and all the turmoil those years brought?

Cleaning up after incompetent servants whoopsi-daisies, going head to head with reapers weilding gardening tools. Thwarting plots against the Queen and presenting his magnificent master with a flourish befitting a king. Those _were_ the good old days, he found himself smiling. Was that a fondness?

He must be a masochist, to be missing _those_ days.

The present day was so dull and straightfoward. Yes, there were lies and conspiracies and double agents around every corner, but it was all so samey. Nothing he hadn't seen before – no reason for anyone's betrayal was surprising. Greed and sloth, pride and idiocy. Why wasn't idiocy considered a deadly sin, he wondered. Humans these days seemed to be as full of stupid ideas as ever, so why the hell not?

His quarters were small and simple, needing no decoration or flare. Servants these days certainly had better living conditions than that of the past, he had to concede. He had seen barracks, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, full of filth and scum. Never cleaned, never maintained. The Phantomhive household servants all lived like royalty in comparison, he had often thought to himself when he had been serving his first master.

Demons do not need sleep, nor food to survive. There was no reason for him to dwell in his quarters unless it was the dead of the night – even then, he was able to hear everything that happened anywhere across the grounds. He heard Shiori's cries at night. He heard Rin's soft snoring and Tanaka's gentle sighs. When the manor grounds slept, he had the time to sit and think.

And yet, there was something that gave him pause one chilly December morning. The first snows had begun to fall only a week or so before, and since the darker weather had set in a month previously, Sebastian had worked tirelessly through the shorter days and longer nights, ensuring the fireplaces always stocked and ready, every hearth warm.

It was almost seven o'clock. Time for the master to be woken. He pulled on his tailcoat, checked his pocketwatch and patted himself down – yes, he had everything he needed. But still, he paused at the door.

Of course.

It was December fourteenth.

"Oh silly me," he found himself chuckling. "How could I forget?"

He turned back, and crossed over to the small bedside table. Pulling open the top draw, he drew out a small black journal and pen, flipping it open to the latest entry. He penned down the words quickly, before setting it down on the table and heading out.

The young master must be woken now, else the day will be starting late. That would be most unbefitting of a butler such as Sebastian. And after all, if he wasn't able to rouse his master at a decent hour _,_ have her morning Darjeeling brewed and ready, and retrieve the letter from the Queen he could hear the postman delivering to the hands of Tanaka at that very moment for his Master to read right away, then what kind of god-awful butler could he possibly be?

 **….**

 _To my Master._

 _One more year, but I have not forgotten my promise. You need not fear, for I will find you yet. Please, Master, give me just a little more time._

 _Happy birthday._

 _Yours,_

 _Sebastian._


End file.
